LYRICAL PRESS

      Kensington Publishing Corp.

       www.kensingtonbooks.com

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      LYRICAL PRESS BOOKS are published by

      Kensington Publishing Corp.

      119 West 40th Street

      New York, NY 10018

      Copyright © 2017 by Judith Post

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      Lyrical Press and Lyrical Press logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

      First Electronic Edition: November 2018

      eISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0139-9

      eISBN-10: 1-5161-0139-1

      First Print Edition: November 2018

      ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0140-5

      ISBN-10: 1-5161-0140-5

      Printed in the United States of America

      Books by Judi Lynn

      COOKING UP TROUBLE

      OPPOSITES DISTRACT

      LOVE ON TAP

      SPICING THINGS UP

      FIRST KISS, ON THE HOUSE

      SPECIAL DELIVERY

      Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

      Chapter 1

      The house looked deserted, but Karli Redding knocked on her grandfather’s door. Maybe the mean old coot had been carted off to a nursing home during the night and no one told them. He was lucky the house was still standing. It looked worse than the last time she was here. When was that? Ten, fifteen years ago? Its roof looked new, but paint peeled on the clapboards. The porch sagged where a column had rotted, and tall, dead weeds choked the yard.

      She pulled her jacket closer. The air had a bite to it. When she exhaled, her breath misted, but it could be worse for the first of November. She knocked again, waited, and turned to leave, then decided she’d better call Mom first and check in. “I’m in Mill Pond. The place looks deserted. No one answered the door.”

      “Dad can’t get around much anymore,” her mother warned. “He’s pretty much confined to his bed or wheelchair. Just knock and let yourself in. That’s what everyone does, according to Keagan’s phone call. Keagan was going to meet you there. Maybe he got hung up and is running a little late.”

      It was the first time Mom had given her a name. “Who’s Keagan?”

      “He lives on the farm next to Dad’s. I’d have come to deal with this, but I’m in the middle of a project at work.”

      Yeah, right. That’s what Mom kept saying. Not that Karli blamed her. Mom was a strong woman, and she’d overcome a lot, but memories of living with her dad still haunted her. No one wanted to be around him, and Mom couldn’t make herself come back to face him again. Axel could make a saint want to strangle him. Thankfully, Karli had only seen him on rare visits when she was young. More than enough. Not so much that she couldn’t do what needed to be done. It would be easier for her than Mom and she was between traveling nurse jobs. Not that she’d meant to spend her time off dealing with a pain-in-the-ass geriatric.

      Karli took a deep breath, bracing herself. What a depressing place! The farm fields spread as far as she could see, all of them neglected. The barn’s roof needed to be repaired. It had taken all the determination she had to return to Mill Pond. No wonder her mom couldn’t force herself to. Only bitter memories clung to this place. Mom had gotten out of town as soon as she finished high school and only drove back for visits until her youngest brother finally graduated and fled his parents, too. Axel Crupe was eighty-three years old now, and he hadn’t improved with age. As far as anyone knew, he had no friends. His wife, Eloise, had given him twelve children, and Karli’s mother could only remember her as pale and pregnant.

      “She flinched a lot,” Mom said, “because Dad liked to backhand her.”

      “Why did she stay with him?” Karli could hardly remember her grandmother. She’d died five years ago, but Karli had no clear memory of her. When the family visited Mill Pond, Eloise sank into the background, unremarkable and easily forgotten, never calling attention to herself. Maybe after having a dozen children, it took all of the oomph out of you. That, and living with Axel.

      Her mother sighed. “I don’t think Mom was too bright, and she was easily intimidated.”

      “A wimp.”

      “A sad shade of a woman,” her mother corrected.

      Understandable. Axel was a banty rooster with an attitude. Karli knocked on the door with more force, ready to push it open, when a tall, lean man cracked it wide for her. She stepped back and stared. Not hard on the eyes.

      He nodded a welcome. “You must be Karli. Your mom said you’d come to help settle things with Axel. I couldn’t come to the door earlier. I was helping him back in bed after changing his sheets.” Karli raised her brows and he said, “They weren’t wet, but he ate crackers and they were full of crumbs.”

      The house had that old-people